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Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

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Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#271

Post by joshuahughes »

tibbon wrote: post #215
ahelwer wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employer-dependent healthcare and visa status are powerful tools of control. Let's also not forget sky-high housing costs, ensuring an astronomical savings burn rate when unemployed.

Yea; but I'm a programmer/engineer. Last time I needed a job, I had a contract for $15k that month within two hours, and an interview for a full time position by the end of the day. People in our position have the power to do things like that, and we should use that power for good.

I'd bet my bottom dollar that >75% of readers are wishing they could all be in your incredibly fortunate shoes...

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#272

Post by Hamuko »

r00fus wrote: post #260
laughinghan wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You genuinely believe Tim Cook has more leverage than China? By what fraction do you think Apple's profits would drop if it had to rebuild all of its factories outside of China? By what fraction do you think China's GDP or tax revenue would drop if it kicked Apple out of China? Even if that situation were reversed, Tim Cook answers to shareholders via a board of directors. He's legally obligated to maximize sharehold…

> He's legally obligated to maximize shareholder value. Is this actually true? Or just a "institutional wisdom"?

It's false. It's just that it's close to what's actually true, so it's pretty easy to pass it as a fact.

Basically, what a company is required to do is serve the BEST INTERESTS of its shareholders. This might not necessarily be the same as maximising shareholder value.

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#273

Post by howhigh12323 »

mistermann wrote: post #73
factsaresacred wrote: post #50

In a way it's a good thing that China is revealing its petulant nature to the world. Not that they hid it all that well, but until recently everybody was too busy enjoying cheap electronics to notice the monster they were feeding. China—the people and country—are spectacular. China—the Party—is an malevolent force obsessed with self-preservation. Such is the nature of autocratic regimes. A quote from Czech dissident…

> In a way it's a good thing that China is revealing its petulant nature to the world. It's probably somewhat risky strategically, but they likely realize they're now strong enough to do such things with absolute impunity, and it will make their eventual victory that much sweeter.

I think they are tired of playing crouching tiger hidden dragon. Its good for China, but not so much for the rest of the world.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#274

Post by reaperducer »

organsnyder wrote: post #185
tibbon wrote: post #182

What's it take for an engineer in the US to actually do something like this? If my boss/product manager wanted me to do something like this, I'd be calling them out for shitty politics, and telling them they need to find a new engineer because I'd quit immediately - and likely incite others to come with me. Maybe I have a higher sense of morality than others, but I'm no shill for China's power over Taiwan. I can use…

Perhaps that engineer had a baby on the way and was terrified of losing health coverage, or was in the United States on an H1B visa and was afraid they'd be deported... I'd probably have made the same decision as you (I'm fortunate to have a safety net), but many people don't have that luxury.

Perhaps that engineer had a baby on the way and was terrified of losing health coverage, or was in the United States on an H1B visa and was afraid they'd be deported...

I believe the applicable phrase here is "courage of your convictions."

I've been fired twice for refusing to do things that I thought were unethical. Neither time did I have a safety net ready. But my life still continued.

A few years ago I stood up to a middle manager over privacy issues in a feature request. It went far enough to get HR and the legal department involved. It took half a year, but I won.

Bully managers count on people being afraid to lose their jobs. If more people stood up to them, they'd be afraid to make stupid requests in the first place.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#275

Post by supernova87a »

ShteiLoups wrote: post #266
supernova87a wrote: post #257

I feel the need to inject some perspective here. Every country imposes requirements on manufacturers of devices or service providers that some person(s) might object to. If you choose to do business in that country, you play ball, or you leave. How you pick which ones that are tolerable enough to live with is the question -- and don't imagine that it's moral principles that define it. It's how much a company wants to…

This is more blatantly political. Do you have anything more I can read about the Isrealy/USA map censorship?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyl%E2%80%93Bingaman_Amendment https://phys.org/news/2018-05-scientists-open-skies-imagery-...

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#276

Post by diminoten »

pjlegato wrote: post #202
diminoten wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fallacy, stop with this kind of logic. At whatever point where the requests become unreasonable is the point at which to raise issue, not because of some arbitrary "precedent setting" bullshit. The frog, in reality, just jumps out of the pot when the water gets too hot.

If most people operated rationally, it would be correct to disregard slippery slope arguments as fallacies when analyzing the spread of ideas in society. However, most people do not operate rationally most of the time -- they use rough heuristics and perceived social signaling of others to arrive at (usually irrational) conclusions about most issues. Empirically, slippery slopes have always been an extremely common w…

I understand what you're trying to say, but it's not true or real in the sense that the counter-argument is entirely effective. Specifically, "When that thing you're worried about actually comes up, then we'll decide what to do."

Saying, "We're still three steps from my issue but this thing that, in and of itself I have no problem with, can't happen because it might lead to the thing I have a problem with." is not a valid argument.

To try and bring it back into focus, it's a real problem that this "one pic" isn't being shown. It's not a slippery slope conversation, because we're already at the thing I/we have a problem with. No need to argue the "this paves the way for worse things" because this is the worse thing! We're here!

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#277

Post by ryandrake »

behnamoh wrote: post #252
root_axis wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should still blame the engineer, but they shouldn't shoulder the majority of the blame.

Maybe if all engineers quit with the first immoral request by the management, it would actually pave way for more morally ignorant engineers to replace them. We only see what has happened, not what has not happened. What if the iOS engineers do in fact have moral values and have declined some of the management's more immoral requests many times, but this particular request seemed the lesser of two devils? Maybe those…

I’ve in past jobs occasionally objected to being assigned a task on ethical grounds. My manager never had a problem with it. There were 10 people on the team so he’d just reassign it to one of the other nine who had no problem with the task.

There is no unified code of ethics that all software developers must abide by, so getting unethical work done is just a matter of moving the work to the next developer in line.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#278

Post by BinaryIdiot »

tibbon wrote: post #218
mh8h wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to add another angle. Apple, as well as other tech companies, have many employees in China, and a lot of non-Chinese employees that travel to China regularly. Many of these changes are demanded by the PRC government and not abiding by those might risk imprisonment for those employees. Disclaimer: I work for Apple, but I don't work on iOS.

Sure; but literally any day Tim Cook can say, "Ok China, I no longer play your game. Enjoy having no support or economic progress from us - bye". My point wasn't a specific developer (as you point out, they might have been in China themselves and unable to do otherwise), but that anyone in the chain who is "safe" and in a position of power and privilege to not-play China's game, I find morally dubious. Engineers in t…

> Sure; but literally any day Tim Cook can say, "Ok China, I no longer play your game. Enjoy having no support or economic progress from us - bye".

No he cannot. He would be immediately removed at CEO and replaced with someone who played ball.

Remember, Apple is a publicly traded company. What you're suggesting is, at a whim, Tim Cook could just completely tank the company. China has far, far more leverage over Apple than Apple has over them plus it's a huge market they're making progress in.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#279

Post by reaperducer »

tibbon wrote: post #182

What's it take for an engineer in the US to actually do something like this? If my boss/product manager wanted me to do something like this, I'd be calling them out for shitty politics, and telling them they need to find a new engineer because I'd quit immediately - and likely incite others to come with me. Maybe I have a higher sense of morality than others, but I'm no shill for China's power over Taiwan. I can use…

Whoever coded this change and approved this PR, shame on you.

And therein lies the problem. We want to blame a programmer, or a flack. But it's never one or two people.

The real issue is a bureaucratic system or corporate culture that allows things like this to happen. Everyone can point fingers at someone else and absolve themselves internally of blame.

Taiwan should block shipments to Apple of whatever parts are made there that Apple needs. And I say this as a shareholder.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#280

Post by icelancer »

organsnyder wrote: post #185
tibbon wrote: post #182

What's it take for an engineer in the US to actually do something like this? If my boss/product manager wanted me to do something like this, I'd be calling them out for shitty politics, and telling them they need to find a new engineer because I'd quit immediately - and likely incite others to come with me. Maybe I have a higher sense of morality than others, but I'm no shill for China's power over Taiwan. I can use…

Perhaps that engineer had a baby on the way and was terrified of losing health coverage, or was in the United States on an H1B visa and was afraid they'd be deported... I'd probably have made the same decision as you (I'm fortunate to have a safety net), but many people don't have that luxury.

It is the willingness to pay a price that separates standing for bedrock principles from cheap virtue signalling.
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